Historical voices

We kissed the hand that smote us, and spurned the hand that helped us.

The key to the situation was the four million of slaves; yet the slave who loved us, was hated, and the slaveholder who hated us, was loved.

It had not been a war of conquest, but rather a war of conciliation.

Until then the federal arm had been more than tolerant to that relict of barbarism.

A death blow was then given to the slaveholding rebellion.

It was the turning-point in the conflict between freedom and slavery.

The first of January, 1863, was a memorable day in the progress of American liberty and civilization.

The government, I fear, was still clinging to the idea that positions of honor in the service should be occupied by white men, and that it would not do to inaugurate just then the policy of perfect equality.

I was not satisfied, yet I left in the full belief that the true course to the black man’s freedom and citizenship was over the battle-field, and that my business was to get every black man I could into the Union armies.

In all this I saw the tender heart of the man rather than the stern warrior and commander-in-chief of the American army and navy, and while I could not agree with him, I could but respect his humane spirit.

I at once felt myself in the presence of an honest man--one whom I could love, honor, and trust without reserve or doubt.

I was never more quickly or more completely put at ease in the presence of a great man, than in that of Abraham Lincoln.

I entered it with a moderate estimate of my own consequence, and yet there I was to talk with, and even to advise, the head man of a great nation.

I was an ex-slave, identified with a despised race; and yet I was to meet the most exalted person in this great republic.

The distance then between the black man and the white American citizen, was immeasurable.

It really seems that nothing of justice, liberty, or humanity can come to us except through tears and blood.

What ought to have been done at the beginning, comes late, but it comes.

I am free to say, my dear sir, that the case looks as if the confiding colored soldiers had been betrayed into bloody hands by the very government in whose defence they were heroically fighting.

No word was said when free men from Massachusetts were caught and sold into slavery in Texas.

No word of retaliation when a black man is slain by a rebel in cold blood.

When I plead for recruits I want to do it with all my heart, without qualification.

I owe it to my long-abused people, and especially to those already in the army, to expose their wrongs and plead their cause.

I saw, or thought I saw a ray of light, brightening the future of my whole race as well as that of our war-troubled country, in arousing colored men to fight for the nation’s life.

But thus far, the government had not kept its promise, or the promise made for it.